99 Things

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The other day I posted a quote on my Instagram page that said: “You may do 99 things for someone, but they only remember the 1 you didn’t do.” So. True. I feel like I am living that quote every day. However, I realized that it’s not just others who remember the one and forget the 99….it’s me.

As a highly emotional person, I experience many feelings throughout a normal day: relief, contentment, happiness, frustration, fear, apathy, anger. I feel relief when the kids get to school on time, contentment when I look at my little family sitting around the dinner table, happiness when I hear the joy in my kids’ voices as they talk about their fun day at school, apathy when I am doing mundane tasks like unloading the dishwasher, anger when I am driving (is road rage an emotion?). But there is one other emotion I feel strongly and deeply every day: guilt. As a working mom, guilt comes with the territory.

About a month ago, I was struggling with the whole working mom thing. I was being pulled in a million directions; this body couldn’t stretch any more. My kids needed me. I was forgetting to send in supplies for class parties and to sign permission slips. My son wanted me to come to his Easter party at school. My daughter craved some mother-daughter time. As a realtor, my clients needed me to show houses and negotiate contracts. As an employee, my bosses wanted me to be in the office more. As a part-time teacher, papers to be graded were piling up. And my poor husband….he was put on the back-burner. I was doing a lot of things, and doing none of them well.

Luckily, Spring Break came and we took a last-minute trip to the Outer Banks of NC. The 5-hour car ride also allowed for some meaningful chat time with the hubby. I worried about how my bosses probably hated me because I wasn’t in the office enough. I lamented over how my son’s teacher must think I am such a bad mom for forgetting to sign that field trip paper. I complained about the fact that I forgot to add something to the last lesson plan I taught at the college. Then my husband said something that I (begrudgingly) admitted was pretty eye-opening: “Did you ever think that it’s YOU who is putting pressure on yourself and nobody else is really thinking anything bad at all?”

Hmmmmm….maybe I was focusing on the ONE misstep and forgetting the “99” good things I had done. As a mom, my kids are always taken care of both physically and emotionally. They want for nothing. They are happy. They are healthy. They are well-behaved and smart. As a realtor, I am always accessible. My cell phone is never off. If someone wants to see a house, I schedule it almost immediately. I pride myself on my customer service. I may not be in the office all day, every day….but I am also not home eating bon bons and watching Jerry Springer. I am working all of the time. As a teacher, students often tell me how much they love my class and how much they learn. I often brush it off because I am too embarrassed about the compliment. But why? I should store those comments in my brain’s filing cabinet and pull them out when I am feeling crappy.

My husband made me realize that I am the one being hard on myself. Therefore, for every little thing I “screw up” I make sure to think about the good things that I have done….forgot to get hot dog rolls for dinner? Oh well. I didn’t forget to pick up the kids, did I? Didn’t make that dentist appointment yet? Well, I was working with a client to show her 5 houses this afternoon. It’s taken me a little longer to grade those research papers? I’ll get to them….but in the meantime, the lesson I just taught was pretty successful (nobody fell asleep – WIN!).

Being a mom is hard. Being a working mom is super-hard. We all need to cut ourselves some slack. Nobody is going to win the Perfect Mom Award because there is no Perfect Mom Award. As long as our kids are happy, healthy, and we do our best every day….I would say that’s pretty fantastic.

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